I watched a YouTube vid of a print farm cranking out tons of articulated dragons and other creatures. Me, personally, they look cheesy and cheap. Who is buying these? Kids at craft fairs? Are they viable in online stores like etsy/shopify?

It has transformed how my family and I print.

I had one of the original Ender 3s and a CR-30 and have used Prusa printers. I've compiled, patched, and maintained a Marlin fork for my heavily modded Ender 3. I have dedicated Octoprint RPis for both printers. I have handwritten G-Code and used a dozen different slicers (BTW, this one has worked best for the CR-30).

I have written tutorials for my wife and kids on using the printers. I've recorded videos for them. I even set up a dedicated computer whose sole purpose is slicing and uploading, with all the bookmarks necessary to find and use models.

Even after all the effort, 3d printing has always been a heavily hands-on exercise with all too frequent sub-par results. I never started a print without babysitting it to fine-tune settings in real-time or to abort prints likely to fail. Not just already failed prints, mind you; prints that were likely to fail so I didn't have to return to a hot blob or spaghetti.

My wife and kids never got deep into printing. It was too much effort for the return. I'd print stuff regularly, but every time I went too long between printing, it would be an exercise in relearning and re-tuning.

I got a BambuLabs P1S about two months ago. It's been printing non-stop. I've used more filament in two months than in two years.

Everyone in the family prints what they want off their phone, and almost everything prints perfectly. The AMS (multi-filament addon) gives them color options without switching filament and makes beautiful multi-color prints. I use the official desktop slicer, which is just another slicer clone. I jumped into it without much adjustment.

BambuLabs filament even comes with embedded NFC markers, allowing the AMS to detect the color, type, and settings automatically. AND BambuLabs filament has been cheaper than comparable filament from Amazon. Granted, there's been a sale recently, but it's also easier to buy cheaper refill rolls. The official BambuLabs spools are reusable; snap them apart, pop in a refill, and snap them back.

I've printed larger models than I've ever printed before with virtually no issue. I can fill the plate with models and print right up to the edge, neither of which I'd do on other printers due to bed leveling wonkiness or stringing concerns. Running out of filament isn't a big deal. If you have another roll of the same type loaded, it'll use that automatically. If not, it'll recover fine with whatever you replace it with.

The P1S has turned 3d printing from a niche hobby requiring dedication to something easier than printing a Word doc off an inkjet.

Disclaimer: It's not perfect. It's just much, much better than anything I've used thus far.

Disclaimer #2: This is not a paid post, and I paid the retail price for the P1S. That said, if anyone at BambuLabs does want to pay me, I'm all ears. I need more filament.